


tiny cities

by julysixth



Series: kings & vagabonds [1]
Category: NCT (Band), Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Gen, Inception-esque AU, M/M, after lives, angsty af, shared dream worlds, this was originally supposed to be gen but idk what happened it is what it is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-07 18:08:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14676576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/julysixth/pseuds/julysixth
Summary: in jeno's dreams, jaemin never dies. in jaemin's dreams, jeno finally lets him go.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> tiny cities is a part of kings & vagabonds, a collection of fics that take place in a inception-esque au revolving around nct dream and stray kids' 00 lines. you don't need to have watched the movie because i just picked out the concepts from the movie that i liked (e.g. totems). the plan is to expand the universe with more works in kings & vagabonds.
> 
> listen to “tiny cities” by flume (ft. beck)

Alice was alone when she fell into the rabbit-hole. Confused and afraid, she got more than what she bargained for when she decided to chase the white rabbit. Before they had found one another, the Vagabonds fell into rabbit-holes alone too. Just eight boys trying to navigate a gift they didn't know why they had. When they were constructing intricate dreamworlds or infiltrating dreams, they were kings. But even kings need companions, so they considered themselves lucky to have found one another. 

Dreams get messy, anyone who has ever remembered any details of their past dreams can attest to that. Alice’s world, her Wonderland, if it were a dreamworld or not, was a perfect example of one of those messy dreams. When the Vagabonds watched _Alice in Wonderland_ together for the first time, they came to the conclusion that her world was a reflection of her reality. It might have been that every character that she ran into, every situation she found herself in, represented someone or something from her reality- maybe some ghosts from the past or the present, some future worries or some personal demons.

Dreaming with the Vagabonds was that and more. The real world, its environments and people, were obfuscated along with all its problems. Tying yourself down to the issues of the real world would make the dreamworld unstable. They often ran into that challenge, they knew all the permutations of physical and emotional attachment. But it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. They needed those attachments to find their way back home. Whatever  _home_ was, was always changing. They called themselves the Vagabonds for a reason. Home was never one place, home was wherever they were anchored to. Places, people, things, memories. And sometimes it was temporary.      

Jaemin used to place white rabbits into their dreams often to remind them that they were dreaming. It was one of his roles in the group. They all had their totems, personal objects that would let them know whether they were in their own realities or someone else’s. But totems weren’t good indicators of how deep into a dream they were going or how deep they had already gone. Following the rabbits would lead them deeper into the dreamworld. Sometimes they needed that. Sometimes it was too dangerous.

 

On the night of Jaemin’s wake, Jeno thought he saw a white rabbit scurrying across the funeral home’s garden, illuminated only by rustic lamp posts. It disappeared when a guest approached him. _I must be losing it,_ he thought _._

Guests had been saying the same thing to him the whole evening. “We’re sorry,” they said, “we know how much he meant to you.”

Could they have really known? How? By the third time Jeno had heard those words that night they sounded like a broken record to him. Even the thought of broken records brought back memories of Jaemin. Jaemin was the type to buy old records at secondhand shops and more often than not, the records he bought were damaged. But he kept them anyways. They still sat in a tall stack in the Vagabonds’ hideout, a large treehouse hidden away on an undeveloped expanse of land along the road to the cemetery grounds. None of the boys had been back to the treehouse since Jaemin’s passing.

_We know how much he meant to you._

They didn't know. It was impossible. They didn't understand Jaemin’s smile, something he'd deconstructed and analyzed over and over again. There were ten different smiles and twenty-five different adjectives for them.

They didn't know that when Jaemin cried he always hid away without warning, like he was always ashamed. But Jeno knew that was never it. Jaemin was never ashamed of his emotions, he just never wanted anyone else to worry about him.

They didn't know just how soft Jaemin’s voice could get when he would whisper Jeno’s name in still darkness, sometimes when they were happy and sometimes when they were sad. Then, regardless of whether they were happy or sad, he’d follow it with a small laugh and bury his smile into his pillow.

They didn't know how he used to shake his hips to cheesy '80s music and that how even though he knew well that the world was going to shit, he somehow always dreamed of a life much bigger than himself.

Jeno and the rest of the Vagabonds were still so young that they didn’t know exactly what to do at wakes. Of course, just like family parties, you air-kiss _aunts_ and _grandmas_ that you haven’t seen in years or don’t even remember, and they tell you how much you’ve grown since they’ve last seen you or how handsome you’ve gotten. But it isn’t exactly a party, there’s still a sadness in their voices and so there is also a sadness in how you smile back and say _thanks_.

When Renjun and Seungmin sang _I Will Be Here_ at the request of Jaemin’s mother during the wake they put on brave faces… and brave voices. They didn’t waver, not at all. No one else could have done it, Jeno was sure of that. He sat with the other boys in the third pew behind Jaemin’s family. Next to Jeno, Felix rested his head on Jisung’s shoulder. Donghyuck and Hyunjin were not crying but Jeno knew that if he looked at any of his friends while listening to Renjun and Seungmin’s voices, he would concede to his tears, fighting to catch his breath between ugly sobs just like he did the night before and the night before that when he was all alone in his room.

 

Jaemin had talked to Jeno about death a few times. Mostly when they would, just the two of them, hang out at the skate park in the late hours of the night.  

“Nobody’s allowed to be happy at my wake because I’m dead. Everybody needs to be fucking crying and miserable. I’m dead.” Jaemin had joked, rolling back and forth on the skateboard he was sitting on. There was a beat of silence between them that Jeno remembers as clear as day. He had looked over at his best friend. Under street lights, Jaemin looked so delicate. He always did but that time he looked even more fragile.

Jeno managed a smiled. It took everything in him. “Of course.”

“Nah, I’m just kidding,” Jaemin said, always so perceptive, “I don’t care if you all want to throw a dance party.”

 

On the day of the burial, Jeno had a hard time getting out of the passenger seat of Hyunjin’s car. Hyunjin parked right in front of the cemetery entrance, tall, black, cast iron gates that stood sentinel over both visitors and the graves. _It’s just wrong,_ Jeno wanted to say. _Jaemin didn’t want to be buried._  

Hyunjin and Renjun made eye contact through the rearview mirror, exchanging concern.

“Jeno, did you hear me?” Renjun’s voice pulled him down like gravity, “You left the roses at Jisung’s didn’t you?”

“Shit.”

He had spaced out again. The image of the yellow roses laying on Jisung’s dining table flashed before him. Felix had chosen the yellow roses for them to toss into the grave. He said they symbolized bonds of friendship and the joy given to one by those bonds _. Joy._  They had decided long before this that everything they would do for Jaemin would be out of happiness and celebration of his life, not of mourning. Of course, that was easier said than done. 

"It’s alright,” Hyunjin said, “Jisung probably hasn’t left yet, I’ll call him.”

Jeno felt like his friends were taking everything easier than him. Everyone mourns differently, he’d heard that saying before. The first time he'd heard it was when his grandmother passed away when he was in middle school. He’d taken that loss hard but this was different. Somehow he felt so much weaker than everyone around him. 

 

Jaemin had a wild imagination and that’s what made dreaming with him fun. He got ideas from comic books, movies, video games, anything. When they joked one day about what they wanted their funerals to be like, Jaemin had everything thought out. He didn’t want to be buried.

“This is how it’s gonna go. You know the scene in _Thor: The Dark World?_ Frigga’s funeral.”

“Who?”

“Thor’s mom.”

“Oh yeah.”

“That’s it. That’s the funeral I want.”

“Sorry, Jaem, we’re not going to sail you off in a boat and light it on fire with a flaming arrow.”  

“Or spread my ashes at the roots of a tree. One that'll keep growing for centuries. Hopefully.”

These images, born from Jaemin's imaginations and words, came back to Jeno more beautiful and more fitting for Jaemin than they seemed during that conversation. When Jaemin suggested these things back then, Jeno replied with  _I can't promise you anything._ He remembered the little pout on Jaemin's face that was quickly replaced with a grin as he changed the topic of the conversation himself. 

“Can you just promise me _one_ thing, Jeno?”

“What?”

Jeno noted Jaemin's grin immediately. Smile 3 of 10, _teasing_. Adjective 12 of 25, _playful_.

“Before I die, you’ll show me what’s in your locket.”  

It was Jeno’s totem, a silver locket that he had found in his grandmother’s belongings after she passed and he had helped his parents clean out her room. The locket had remained empty up until the Vagabonds decided to create totems for all their dreaming. Only Jeno himself knew the picture inside. Because no else knew, in someone else’s dreamworld, if he opened the locket, the picture would be different from what it was in reality. Jeno wrapped his fingers around the locket on his neck as he studied Jaemin’s grin some more. Adjective 7 of 25, _hopeful._

“I promise.”

 

When Jeno finally got out of Hyunjin’s car, he looked up at the sky. It was a familiar gray, a gray he'd seen in many of their dreamworlds. Clouds used to be comforting, like a blanket that shielded them from a harsh sun. But that day, it felt like the clouds were smothering something beautiful. Renjun placed a hand on Jeno's shoulder, "Let's go." The sound of Renjun's voice on the backdrop of 11 AM gray sky called forth the song that had been sung the night before.

_Tomorrow morning if you wake up and the sun does not appear, I will be here._


	2. Chapter 2

When Jaemin awoke he found himself on a moving train. He felt as though he had been napping for an hour or two. But why wasn’t he in his room at the hospice? Initially, he assumed that he was dreaming, _building_ to be exact (that’s what the Vagabonds had always called it when they were creating dreamworlds), but it didn’t feel like he was in a dream of his own design.  
  
When his eyes completely adjusted to the warm sunlight he looked straight at the passenger sitting opposite of him. There were other passengers in the train car, people of all ages who seemed like they knew where they were going. Some were reading newspapers, some were staring out the windows, hands folded, watching a peaceful pastoral landscape.  
  
The passenger across from him was a boy who Jaemin figured had to be about his age. Usually, when he opened his eyes in a dream, the first thing he’d see was one of the Vagabonds. But he didn’t recognize this boy at all. He was reading a comic book that looked old and worn. He exuded an innocence, almost like that of a young child’s.  
  
“Excuse me,” Jaemin said cautiously. He’d always been cautious about peaceful dreams because from past experiences he knew they could suddenly turn into nightmares. “Can you tell me where we are?”  
  
The boy looked up from his reading and stared at him blankly before speaking, “Oh, you’ve died. Everyone who dies ends up on this train, I think.”  
  
Naturally, Jaemin was taken aback by this but the alarm was fleeting. He settled into his seat when he realized he had been preparing for this and that he had been ready. He didn’t know exactly what to expect but he had dozens of scenarios lined up in his head while he was in the hospice. _So, this is death. This is what it’s like._ He thought of his family and friends, they probably weren’t ready, no matter how much they had prepared.  
  
Jaemin was wearing his favorite flannel and pair of jeans. He’d worn them right before being admitted into the hospice. His skin felt so much more softer, unblemished. His vision felt clearer. Ironically, he had never felt more alive.  
  
“Are we in heaven or hell?”  
  
“Mmm.. it’s more like limbo,” the boy replied, “I mean, I don’t think hell would be this nice. And I haven’t seen God or any angels around so I’m not quite sure if it’s heaven either.”  
  
Jaemin raised his eyebrows. Would anyone even recognize _God_ if they ever saw him?  
  
“What’s your name?”  
  
“Na Jaemin.”  
  
“Na Jaemin, you can call me Mark.”  
  
“Mark,” Jaemin said, “Where are we going?”  
  
Mark shrugged, “No one on this train really knows. Everyone is just waiting. But if you really want to find out you can always take it to the end of the line.”    
  
“Waiting? Waiting for what?”  
  
“Loved ones, people who haven’t died yet,” Mark explained, “So they can get off at the end of the line together.”  
  
Jaemin thought about his family and friends again. Then he thought about the possibility that he might know someone here in limbo.     
  
“So no one here knows what happens at the end of the line?”  
  
“No one at all.”  
  
Jaemin nodded as if he understood everything, studying the world around him. The view outside the window was of rolling green hills and meadows dotted with flowers. Every now and then he’d see a bird in the clear sky. It occured to Jaemin that those birds were also dead and that there probably existed more animals in this limbo and that they’d stay in limbo forever. Of course, because they did not know to move on. Unlike humans, they were so naive. Maybe that’s what made them so beautiful.  
  
The train passed by some settlements, tiny cities in the distance. They must have been built by people who had gotten off the train when they decided that it was not yet time to move on. This piqued Jaemin’s interest. What were their reasons? What if you were waiting for someone from the world of the living to die and reunite with you here but they instead decided to move on and get off the last stop without you? How could you be sure you’d both decide to stay to look for one another? Couldn’t you just wait for them at the end of line? Was there a guarantee you’d meet them there? There were so many questions. Jaemin remembered thinking that in death all questions would be answered. But now there were only new ones.  
  
“Mark, if you don’t mind me asking, how long have you been here?”  
  
“Five years? Maybe ten… I kind of lost count.”  
  
_Kind of._ This scared Jaemin a little, what would the passage of time be like here? Would it be like in a dream? Where you could live tens and hundreds of years and lifetimes in one night? Or would it be painfully slow?  
  
“What are you waiting for?”  
  
Mark stopped to think for a moment then smiled sadly, “I don’t know.”  
  
There were many more things Jaemin wanted to ask him about but he also didn’t want to burden him. He wondered if Mark encountered a lot of new souls on the train and experienced this exact same situation regularly, having to answer all the questions they had. Mark returned to his comic book and Jaemin immersed himself in his thoughts, admiring the scenery again.  
  
_Time._ What was it really? How much time had passed in the living world since he had died?  
  
Jaemin’s totem was a wristwatch. The watch’s band was broken so it couldn’t really be worn around the wrist. But it was best to keep it hidden in his pocket anyways. In the real world, or Jaemin’s reality, the watch was stuck at 4:44. In someone else’s dreamworld it would either be stuck on some other time or it would actually be functioning properly.  
  
He patted down in his pockets, they were empty. Regretful, he sighed. _It’s okay, I won’t be building anymore anyways._  
  
More fields and meadows were passed by. Jaemin saw a fawn grazing on a hillside. This creature had died young, Jaemin thought, just like himself. The fawn seemed so lonely and yet, perfectly fine and strong enough to be on its own.

  
  
In a precious memory, Jaemin and the Vagabonds went camping after their third year of high school. Hyunjin and Jisung had just gotten their driver’s licenses, so the eight boys packed into two cars and drove up to the mountains to a national park they had previously only visited in their dreamworlds.  
  
It was late one afternoon on the trip when two deer found their way to their campsite. Jaemin and Jeno sat next to each other at the picnic table, completely silent. The other boys had gone on a late hike, leaving Jaemin and Jeno who were assigned to prepare dinner that night. They admired the deer searching the campgrounds for something to eat. The animals looked so gentle and so beautiful. They sniffed at the tent and then the fire pit. There was a softness in their dark eyes, glistening against the golden hour sun.  
  
Eventually the deer left, disappearing among trees but the two boys embraced the silence a bit longer. It was one of those moments that reminded them that there was still beauty in the real world. With all the spectacular things they’ve dreamed of, it was easy to forget that. That was the danger with building, becoming so detached from reality. Becoming disillusioned.  
  
Jaemin remembered making eye contact with Jeno after the deer had left and feeling like they were on the same page. That in that moment, they felt an indescribable emptiness within themselves.  
  
That night, Jaemin had trouble falling asleep. The boys had stayed up stargazing and drinking… from bottles of liquor they’d either stolen from their parents’ cabinets or received from older friends. They had talked about future plans, what would come after high school. But Jaemin felt like everyone was scared of the future and stuck in the present. It wasn’t entirely awful to be stuck in the present, to be unsure of moving forward. Jaemin knew this, yet he had grown very restless and very ambitious in the time leading up to learning he was ill. His friends had watched that same ambition die out before he had passed and to him that was the most regretful thing.  
  
When almost all of the boys had knocked out, Jaemin snuck out of the tent to be alone with the stars… and everything running anxiously through his head. He heard rustling behind him not to long after he’d settled into his camp chair. He remembered that he knew it was Jeno even before hearing his voice in the dark.  
  
“I needed to piss,” Jeno had whispered, “What the hell are _you_ still doing up?”  
  
Jaemin also knew that Jeno didn’t really _need_ to piss and that he’d just made an excuse to come out after him.  
  
“I can’t fucking sleep. Not tired enough,” Jaemin replied, “It’s ’cause we didn’t go on that damn hike.”  
  
“But didn’t you down an entire handle by yourself? You should be out cold.”  
  
“That was Donghyuck.”  
  
They both laughed as quietly as they could.  
  
After Jeno took care of his business, he sat down in one of the other camp chairs just like Jaemin expected him to.  
  
“They’re gonna wonder why we aren’t in the dreamworld yet,” Jeno said.  
  
“We’re building tonight?”  
  
“Well, they are. I guess. Everyone kind of just assumed, right?”  
  
“Why don’t you get back in there then?”  
  
It got completely silent between the two of them. Their eyes had adjusted to the darkness, so Jaemin could actually see Jeno’s face. They were both looking at each other.  
  
“Because you have something you want to talk about.”  
  
“Shit, you caught me.”  
  
“Always do.”  
  
Interestingly and rather frustratingly, Jaemin doesn’t remember how the conversation started or how it led to what it led to. He could only remember how it ended.  
  
_“I don’t know where my dreams are gonna take me. But I need you there. Please.”_  
  
_“I’ll always find you.”_

 

Jaemin watched an elderly man across the aisle of the train car who was writing in a journal of some sort. Then suddenly, he recalled what he had wanted to do before he died. What he _needed_ to do. He needed to write a letter. But he couldn’t find the right words, _not in time_.  
  
And he had grown tired and weak so quickly. He was only strong enough in dreamworlds. So in them he searched high and low for the one person he needed to relay his words to. But he couldn’t find him, _not in time_.  
  
A tear made its way down Jaemin's cheek. He wiped it away instinctively but his vision remained blurry. _So, you can cry in limbo. Dammit._  
  
Could you dream?

 

The train slowed down to a stop at a station. A handful of people were waiting on the depot. Mark closed his comic book and straightened out his jacket. “Well, this is me,” he said, standing up, “We probably won’t see each other again but it was nice meeting you.”  
  
Mark shuffled toward the train exit, he was the only person getting off from this train car. Jaemin called after him, “Where are you going? I thought you said you didn’t know where?”  
  
Mark turned around and laughed, “I don’t.” His youthful eyes seemed to sparkle when he said, “I hope you find what you’re looking for, Na Jaemin.”  
  
He hopped down onto the wooden depot and started walking parallel the train track.  
  
Jaemin slid open the glass window and before Mark was too far gone, shouted, “How do you know I’m looking for something?”

“Isn’t everyone?” Mark shouted back with a wave.  
  
The train whistled and rumbled to a start. Jaemin sighed with a small, meaningless smile and before he knew it, the train was continuing its journey in full speed.  
  
  
It must have been hours that passed before Jaemin felt like he was growing sleepy. The sun had gotten low, so he assumed that there was such thing as a night in this limbo. The seat opposite of him remained unoccupied even though the train had made several stops and acquired new passengers. Jaemin was surprised that he hadn't gone crazy without nothing to do. Why didn't he have a comic book like Mark or a journal like that elderly man? Did they come with them from the living world or did they find them in limbo? He spent the last few hours debating on whether he wanted to get off at the next stop or the next. The only thing he had concluded was that he was not getting off at the end of the line. Not yet.  
  
His eyelids were growing heavier and heavier as the world grew darker. But before Jaemin fell into his sleep, he saw outside the window a white dot making its way across a clear field. Even in the dim light of dusk, he could recognize it. A white rabbit.


End file.
